Words in my Head
by Nightwitch87
Summary: He tries to do little things, because sometimes, that is easier than saying big things. Particularly when the universe interferes. Snapshots in time from his point of view. Bensidy.
1. November 2013

_Author's Note:__ Hello again! As usual, I might start this author's note by saying "so I had this random idea...", but truth be told, I am not the first person to think of changing perspectives. It bothered me that I never got to show "the other side" as I imagined it in "Normality", but now that I have attempted it, I have say I'm not 100% sold on this narrative voice, because it's a character we never really got to know. This will remain a one-time attempt only, and as the idea came to me while reading Miss lucyspencer's story, here's a shout-out to her and some shameless advertising for her story, not that it needs it. ;) As always, I get super excited about even the shortest, anonymous comments, so feel free to tell me what you think and thanks in advance. _

_Disclaimer:__ As usual, I own nothing and I am not making any profit from this. Characters belong to the show "Law and Order: SVU". Story belongs to me._

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><p><strong>Words in my Head<strong>

"Damn, aren't you cold?" It was pretty rude as far as greetings went, but he couldn't hold back from stating the obvious, not when she was sitting on a sidewalk bench that was barely dry in the middle of November.

"No." She was staring straight ahead at nothing in particular, hardly taking notice of his arrival.

"Okay then…"

"A little."

"Yeah, you know what might help with that? Actually buttoning your coat all the way" he suggested as casually as he could manage.

"Smartass." She gave him a small smile, and he was relieved to see that she was returning slowly from wherever she had been, that he wasn't intruding. All the same, she wasn't moving an inch, and she obviously couldn't button up her coat now that he had told her to do it. It looked like they weren't going anywhere. "You could just say 'hello' for a change."

He wiped across the bench once, removing a couple of sticky leaves, before sitting down reluctantly on the edge of the cold wood beside her. "You could have just waited inside." He should have been on time. It wasn't like he picked her up all the time, so when he did, the one time he got off work on time, he should have been on time. Fuck.

"No."

"Why not?"

"I didn't want to."

"Right" he replied, deciding to keep a sarcastic "that explains it" to himself.

"I just needed a moment" she said quietly, as if talking to herself. "To think."

He nodded uncertainly, pushing the immediate follow-up interrogation from his mind. "You okay?" That simple question itself was pretty daring, at least ever since that time he hadn't been satisfied with a plain "yes" and she had gone on this huge rant about how all she wanted was to be treated normally for five minutes, and that there was no point in bothering to ask because how on earth was he expecting her to feel?

She drew her coat tighter around herself, crossing her arms. "I will be."

Did that mean she wanted to talk about it, or not? He was still figuring this stuff out, but if there was one thing he'd learned, it was that it was better, that it was pure self-preservation, to err on the side of caution. "Just checking. How was therapy?"

"Exhausting."

"Yeah?" His mind instantly produced images of her crying in front of Dr. Mindreader, pouring her heart out to him, piecing the story of what had happened to her back together. He was fully aware that in all likelihood, she didn't actually spend all her therapy hours tearfully recounting what that bastard had done to her. From what little she told him, a lot of it seemed to be about coping and such, and a lot of that seemed to be about putting a load of work into their apartment, agonizing over decisions such as whether they should repaint the walls this one shade of white or this other shade with a fancy name that also looked just white to him. Still, she had to be talking to _someone _about what had happened, and she seemed to trust this Dr. Mindreader guy for whatever reason. That was good enough for him. He could accept that she wasn't talking to him, not about this, not ever, as long as she was talking to someone. Was she, though?

That someone definitely wasn't him. And sometimes, it was good this way, it was like an area he could just "hand off" to someone else, that wasn't somewhere he could help. If he couldn't help in this area, he didn't have to know the right things to say and it was enough for him to just be there. At the same time, that was the problem: He wanted to help, yet for some reason that probably had a hell of a lot to do with shame and fear, she couldn't trust him. And although she had every right not to, and it probably wasn't personal, and he _knew_ he needed to give her space, there was something personal in that. _Great job making it all about you,_ he thought.

They had fallen silent, and as the silence grew, broken only by the sound of cars going by, wind rustling the leaves overhead and sending some more flying, the pressure to say something good grew. Something sensible, the right thing, not just anything. He glanced over at her furtively. Her expression was blank again, her lips pressed together in a thin line. Sometimes, he wished he could simply read her mind, that they didn't need this ugly business of words between them. Then again, maybe it was a good thing he couldn't.

"Sounds tough" he offered unhelpfully.

"Hm-mmh."

"Do you…do you feel like it's helping?"

"Yes" she said quickly, as if he had asked her whether she had coffee at work this morning.

It was supposed to be about what she needed from him now, but it wasn't like she spelled that out on paper for him. He was trying to give her a sense of control, because that was what you were supposed to do, and maybe a little because it was easy to tell himself that when he didn't know what else to do. He actually rarely walked into the trap of starting a fight by telling her to do anything. Instead, he tried to do things for her, little things together with her, tried to accept things as they were and reassure her that she could do this. And sometimes, he felt like she was trying to reward him for trying so hard, giving him pieces of whatever she could give. Even if that entailed being well, hiding the bad stuff as much as possible. He noticed this the most whenever in this performance of theirs, this play of goodness, she got the details wrong. Her words and her behaviour were sometimes mismatched, somehow delayed, out of sync with what was going on at the moment, although he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Something was missing. It was like she was trying to convince herself and everyone else of something.

"Honestly?" Something kept him poking at this point today.

She scowled. "Well, it's not like I'm a broken car and I go in there, walk out and I'm fixed."

"I know that" he replied, irritated that she gave him so little credit. She was quick to misunderstand. He supposed that made sense, too. "You know I didn't mean it like that."

"Then why does everyone keep asking like that?"

"I've never asked you, not since the first session."

"No, you actually haven't" she admitted grudgingly.

"Have you ever considered that people might actually care?" He rubbed his forehead where his hairline was, beyond denial, receding, his skin prickling in the cold.

"It's none of their business. This should be private."

"Look, I get that it's hard, having everyone know –or think they know-" he corrected himself quickly, seeing her open her mouth in objection. "-what you've been through and-"

"They don't know!"

"Right, but I mean there's people who are way too interested, and then there's legitimate concern from people who know you well and who just want to ask how you're doing, if you're getting support." Who didn't have a clue what else to say.

"Well, they better stop holding their breath."

"It's not like that."

"Like what?"

"Like they just want to hear you're all better now."

"That's exactly what it's like." She brushed a strand of hair away from where it had stuck to her lipstick.

He didn't know what to reply to that. Sometimes, it was like out of all the words in the world, there were only wrong things to say that would upset her more, no matter what. She hated being in that "survivor category" where people told her how strong she was almost as much as she hated being in the "victim" category. She couldn't stand it if he mentioned it, but they also couldn't act like nothing had happened.

There were good days, too. Things were getting better, sort of. Sometimes, it was like the performance was becoming more real. She seemed less jumpy to him now than at the very beginning, more able to sit through something, even if it was only five minutes of breaking news on TV, without spacing out. He wondered if she saw all that improvement too, but the answer to this sincere question scared him. Because if he asked it, she might take it as criticism and try once again to manage his expectations, or go all catastrophic on him and obsess over this crazy idea of how the fact that things would never be the same somehow meant that they couldn't be in a relationship, because life was now officially doomed forever. She was quick to put all this deep hidden meaning into his words that wasn't actually there. Worse, she could say "no". But even then, he could argue with that. The worst possible outcome would be for her to say "yes" but clearly not mean it, because then, it would all be a lie. What if she wasn't getting better, but in fact, he had just grown used to her _not _being well? It was the fear that secretly, shamefully made him thankful for night shifts, because then he wouldn't have to wake up next to her wondering if she had really slept through the night, or if he had simply failed to notice her restlessness and nightmares because his sleeping self didn't give a fuck anymore. It was the ambivalence of wanting to be with her at all times, of worrying about her and feeling guilty over being away so much, while at the same time, being relieved when he had an excuse to get away from her.

It wasn't that he needed the old Olivia back, or that he was only with her to be there for her, but watching her struggle day after day after day felt like continuously walking into barbwire. He wanted so desperately to take some of that pain away, but the problem was that two people didn't actually halve the pain, they increased it. So he kept track of the evidence of her improvement, because he had to believe in it, and he knew she could do it, and he had to be the hopeful one here because after all, all this shit hadn't happened to him. And if he had just come over that day like he had said he would… No, that train of thought led nowhere good.

Sometimes, lately, they had managed to have a normal conversation and it wasn't exactly like anyone forgot what had happened, but they could be talking about a random thing like a bad restaurant they had been to and joke about it, and he didn't need to constantly be wondering if the word "hot plate" was a trigger, and she didn't shut him down or mentally check out of the conversation. Or he could rant about work without feeling like he was just bothering her with his own, comparatively minor problems that he had no right to complain about. That had to be a big deal, all things considered. Of course, the next minute, one of them could be called into work, or a letter from the DA's office could come for her and ruin it all. Theirs was a fragile peace.

"Liv, I know you're fighting so hard all the time-"

"Do you now?"

Great, he had walked right into that one. If looks could kill… "I mean I imagine that's what it must be like."

"Do me a favour and stop imagining it, okay?" she requested coldly.

Okay, enough of this empathy thing. Textbooks were so wrong about that, it didn't fly well with Liv. (And wow, the betrayal it would be to her if she knew that he had been looking at victimology textbooks again on account of her.) All you got for it was frostiness, which made her the victim –which, of course, she was- and him the idiotic, insensitive boyfriend. He would catch himself having terrible thoughts sometimes, thoughts like "why does she have to be such a bitch?", although he knew why, and that it had everything to do with PTSD, a sense of vulnerability and ongoing stressors. You needed a certain callousness to hold it together. But he wasn't Lewis. He wasn't a police officer, either, and this wasn't a case, this was his girlfriend's life, which had changed fundamentally over the course of four days. And sometimes, he wanted to "rescue" her, and sometimes, he wanted to run away, and neither of those options was particularly helpful. She was surviving, he told himself over and over again, and that was what mattered. He didn't want to join in the pity parade that defined everything else as "ruined". He tried to remember different times with her when good things hadn't taken so much effort, but everything had been different before, even things as simple as a lazy Sunday morning in bed. "Hey, I'm not the enemy here. I'm on your side, babe."

"I know." She closed her eyes briefly, taking a deep breath and opening them again. Her mood had shifted in an instant. "I just don't want you to…"

"To what?"

"I don't know."

He ran his hand down his face, rubbing his eyes. "Look, I'm not trying to assume shit, all I'm saying is: You can talk to me. Okay?"

"Got it. Thanks."

"Okay. Ready to go home?"

She shook her head slowly, watching a woman who had dropped her cell phone on the sidewalk trying to piece it back together. "I can't."

"Go home? Why?"

"Talk. We've been over that, Bri. It's better for both of us."

"And you're making that decision for both of us."

"Yes. I am."

There was something deeply unsettling about this idea of hers that if he knew, it would somehow change everything more fundamentally than it had already been changed. He understood why she couldn't talk to him about the details, why it was something too horrible to put into words and she didn't want to be looking at him, telling him out loud, reliving it. He had no desire to put her through that and no right to ask it, even though she would have to retell the whole story in court, anyway. But what if the other thing was true, that thing about how talking about it could hurt _both_ of them? Because that could only mean that there had to be things that were even worse than he already knew, things that were beyond his wildest imagination, and at this point, there was nothing that was beyond imagining. Maybe she had a totally unrealistic picture of what he had pieced together, based on Lewis' MO, her injuries at the time, the scars on her body, the way she flinched at certain words, sounds or touches, the things he had seen at her old apartment even after all the important stuff had been taken into evidence, the nightmares, the interviews… Physically, not much was left to the imagination there. But there were these other things he hadn't quite put together, things to do with what Lewis had done to her in other ways. There were random details from these blurry, terrifying days, like the way she had beaten Lewis rather than shot him, or the dead tone of Nick's voice when he had called him, telling him they had found her, and the pause before the word "hurt". It was these fragments of knowledge that weren't a coherent story yet, individual words or images that haunted him at night. Knowing the truth, however horrible, couldn't be worse than the things his brain did with the congealed blood on the carpet, with the words "heated keys", "branding", "duct tape", "forcibly ingested alcohol", "tortured his victims", and "no no no no don't".

"Bri?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm so tired." It was true, he could see that, as much as it was covered by flawless make-up.

"Me too." This was not the time to get into the deep stuff. All he wanted was to go home, open a beer and not think about any of this. He took one hand out of his jacket pocket, where he had been trying to warm it up, and offered it to her. She took it, her icy fingers curling around his. "Things will get less tiring."

"And you know that how, exactly?"

"I know shit. I'm a cop."

"Always the optimist."

"That's me."The optimist who knew that one day, this would all be gone, them and their play acted life, all of it.

"Hope you're right."

"I always am."

"Sure you are." The corners of her mouth were twitching ever so slightly as she gave him her best raised eyebrows '_honestly,_ Brian?' look, the same look that could also mean 'really, this is what you're planning to wear' or 'give me that, now', depending on context. Then, she leaned against him, her head coming to rest on his shoulder.

_I love you._ The words were right there; he could hear himself saying them in his head like so many times before, but his tongue refused to move. He couldn't bring himself to ruin this weird moment of closeness on a public bench outside her therapist's office. _I love you._ For the longest time, he hadn't quite known himself, hadn't been sure if this was love or desperation, fear at the prospect of losing her or actually wanting to be with her, but lately, he had found himself thinking, hoping, planning. Wondering if this apartment was for good, for real, to stay, rather than just an escape born of necessity. Worrying about her, missing her touch, taking note of every little positive thing, every smile or bad joke. Feeling grateful for a second chance, a third chance, really. He loved her, as much as she drove him crazy. Life was too short and he wasn't too cool to care anymore, they weren't kids who were fooling around, this was it. This was as real as things got for people like them. He would do anything to make things right, but he didn't know how. This wasn't the kind of situation that existed in any dating script. There wasn't room for that script in the world of William Lewis. Any romantic sentiment seemed inappropriate, wrong, like he was pushing something on her when he least wanted her to feel pressured. Saying "I love you" wasn't something either of them really did at the best of times, but saying it now would have felt like "I love you because you're not dead", like just one more huge thing he would be dumping on her shoulders. It would send her running for sure. She might feel a false need to break things off with him if she couldn't say it back. She might not feel it. Worst of all, she might disappear again. This was the thing that everything seemed to revolve around these days: He couldn't lose her again, not in any way. So he kept his quiet.

Maybe actually saying things out loud just wasn't their thing.


	2. March 2014

_Author's Note:__ Dun-dun-dun-duuun. __I lied again. Although lying requires intent, and this was not intentional as I had no second chapter planned. But then it just flowed out in nearly one piece, as opposed to the first part. I had no choice, Your Honour, I swear. Anyway, thank you for your feedback on the first chapter, and I would be super happy about any comments!_

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><p>"I love you too, Brian. Always will."<p>

The words rolled off her tongue with surprising ease, although he didn't fail to notice the glint of tears in her eyes. She said them with a strange sincerity, without holding back or resisting. They were the truth and the end. They were not what he had expected from her. They were "thank you", "I'm sorry" and "farewell", both a sign of certainty and of giving in. They were the final drop. His throat constricted, so he did what he did best, leaning in, taking her face into his gloved hands and placing a kiss just above her brow, because he couldn't possibly kiss her on the lips now, not without dragging this out unnecessarily. Somehow, it felt more personal this way, more like them in their safe cuddling zone. She smiled a strained smile.

This was not how break-ups were supposed to go. He had his fair share of experience with them, and what the hell, this was not how these things usually went down. Someone should be angry, shouting, blaming, crying or…something. This was more like a prick with a needle at the end of a drawn out dying process. Consensual decoupling, or whatever it was called, was that what they were actually doing here? Without saying it. He couldn't say it. He was relieved, he was sad, he was tired. He had told her at last, at the point when he had had nothing left to lose. It was done. But so were they.

"Let's go." His hand rested on her upper back as they walked, slowly, under the cold streetlights. It was a strangely beautiful night in its merciless frost, its crystal clarity. They were meant to be sitting inside their warm bistro by now, ordering drinks, talking, rambling about work. This was not how this night was supposed to go.

He tried to think of a way back to that other night, the one where he would be holding her as they fell asleep, the one where they wouldn't say it but know what was true without words. The night of comfort and familiarity, the night they hadn't actually had in so long. They couldn't keep doing this. If he hadn't been late, if he wanted kids a little more, if he'd been prepared for the question, if she had told him anything, if she had made a suggestion, if she had stayed for breakfast that day, if she hadn't found that baby, if he had been home more, if he weren't working IA, if they were different people, if Lewis hadn't, if they had done this fifteen years ago, if he were still the person he used to be before Narcotics, if she… He couldn't go there now. He was done, not because he wanted to be done with her, but because she was finally being honest with him, because she wanted more, because she deserved more, because he wanted out. Wanted and didn't want. He couldn't lose her. He couldn't be with her, either.

He was going to open the car door for her, but she was too quick for him, so he stopped reaching for it mid-way. She paused, her hand on the handle. "Bri…" The short syllable caused a little puff of steam in the dry air.

"Yeah?"

"Nothing." She opened the car door without further ado and got in, slamming it shut behind her.

He walked around the car, getting in on the driver's side. The verhicle held some residual heat from his drive here._ Always will._ Yes, and him, too. His brain pondered words that would fix this. 'I want to grow old with you.' Once upon a time, he had thought about it. Lately, it had become less clear. If he was going to grow old with anyone, it would be her, but there was no mental image that went with it, no future that he could picture aside from the present where they woke up missing each other, miserable day after day, exchanging five sentences a day tops. Doing that forever and ever wasn't what he wanted. 'Maybe I want kids, I don't know, just not now. Not after all this.' He couldn't say that. There was no "later", not at their age, and there was no "not after all this" that wouldn't hurt her or sound like blame or irreparable damage. 'I want us to work.' True, he did, but he had been pretty clear about that, trying to sit down and talk with her for weeks, yet somehow it had never worked out. She had been thinking, she had said, and that thinking hadn't included him. She had come to a decision, and he didn't want her to change her mind out of habit, because he was comfortable or because they had helped each other out. She wanted more. And he didn't want to keep thinking about what not to say all the time, tiptoeing around. He wanted peace.

"Where to now?" he asked before turning the ignition key. Suddenly, it was less clear than it had seemed an hour ago.

"Dinner?" The suggestion was almost timid, and she turned her face away quickly as he looked at her, fumbling with her seatbelt for an unnecessary amount of time.

"Sounds good." He wasn't very hungry, but dinner was familiar. It was the normal thing to do. The world wasn't completely upside down. _Always will._

"Actually…" She turned back to face him, and he could see that her supposedly perfectly waterproof eye make-up was slightly smudged where she had touched it. "Do you mind if we just eat at home?"

"Sure. Whatever you want." Home. A year ago, he would never have expected the two of them to have a place to call that, a place of their own. He hadn't done this cohabitation with a girlfriend thing any more than she had. It had been born out of necessity. And still it felt so normal by now, having something to come home to, seeing her even if they rarely talked these days. What would happen to their place now? Things had moved beyond the point of a simple untangling. There wasn't just his and hers anymore, there was an ours. The realisation that all that was gone now hit him like a kick in the nuts.

"I want you to keep the apartment." He had to get the words out now, before it became too easy to avoid the subject and just live on pretending like this conversation hadn't happened. It was like ripping off a band-aid, he told himself. Just like that. Although ripping off a band-aid hurt, so he wasn't entirely sure what that phrase was supposed to express.

"Are we doing this now?" She sounded incredulous, almost offended. Almost like she hadn't been the one to suggest that maybe there was someone better out there for each of them.

"It's gonna suck whenever we do it."

She tsk-ed at him. "Suck…"

"You keep the apartment."

"No."

"Yes!"

"It wouldn't be right. It's…our place…"

"You fucking love that place." He remembered how her face had lit up the first time they had seen it, more so than it had done in months, the way they had told themselves a million times that it was too expensive for them, that it wasn't sensible, her little charts on a notepad that said just that, and how they had taken them and ceremoniously torn them in half.

"You do, too."

"It's not the same." He didn't want to spell out how he knew that she would never feel comfortable moving into somewhere else by herself right now, a new place, getting used to its lock, its corners, its sounds and feels, its darkness at night. It took a lot for her to feel safe these days. There was no need to remind her of that. "You take it."

"I can't afford it on my own."

"Don't worry about it. I'll-"

"No, you won't. I couldn't."

"Please. I want you to have it. I guess I don't want it to be gone." That part was true. There was no way he would live there without her; that place was all her. "It will be nice to think that you're living there."

She gave him a queer look, her mouth opening and closing. "I'll try to find a way."

Everything died eventually. It wasn't a heart-wrenching tragedy, but a fact that made him feel hollow. When they pulled up to a stoplight, he reached over for her hand. She was still here. She was looking well, he realized, what with the fancy hair and the sparkling eyes and the investment in her work. He didn't _need _to stick around, not if she didn't want him to, not if he didn't want to. She wanted things, things he wasn't sure he wanted anymore. Maybe he had desired them once upon a time, but that had been before, before undercover assignments and pimps and drugs and the rush of adrenaline he got out of that work in the streets, before the unsteadiness. He didn't know what the hell he wanted beyond movement, a change of some sort. No more curveballs.

"_Why do you need _me_ to go?" The way she puts it, it sounds like she is asking God why he is punishing her with some huge evil. _

"_Because my other girlfriend's busy on Sunday?"_

"_Hm, maybe I can go hang out with her then."_

_He grabs another wine glass from the box, twirling it around his hand before putting it down in the cupboard simply because he knows it pisses her off. "Come on, it won't be so bad. I'll protect you."_

_She is glaring at him, taking an empty cardboard box off the table to make room. "You'd love that, wouldn't you."_

"_You've met her before." Briefly. The last time his mother was in town three months earlier, she came by his apartment unannounced, running into a stunned Olivia. Things weren't made easier by her well-meaning "I'm so sorry about everything that happened, that must be so hard", and after some extremely awkward small talk, Olivia excused herself, causing a chain of concerned inquiries from his mom. But that shouldn't happen again, he has made sure of it, and he is probably more eager than he should be to prove to his mother that they are doing fine, that no one here is suffering from major mental health issues and she can stop asking him if he is "sure about this"._

"_Don't remind me."_

"_She just wants to get to know who I'm moving in with, because you're…"_

"_I'm what?" she asks, a playful smile on her lips._

"_Well." Damn, he got himself into a corner there. "You're…my girlfriend." He suddenly feels like a 12-year-old telling a girl that he "like-likes" her. And she is enjoying this way too much, but what else can he say that won't turn this into the "where is this going" conversation that they are trying hard to avoid? At this point, neither one of them is pretending that this is a fling, but it still feels like they are in survival mode. _

"_Nice observation."She sets down the tape cutter she has been using to open another box, and comes to stand in front of him, wrapping her arms around his neck. There is something mischievous in her expression, and yes, when she leans in to kiss him, operation distraction has definitely begun. Her lips are soft, her back feels warm under his hands, and it would be so easy to just forget about Sunday…_

"_Nice try. Look, it's no big deal, just lunch." He doesn't get why this is such a terribly huge thing to her._

"_I know." She draws back slightly, her hands coming to rest on his shoulders._

"_Look, my mom loves me, I'm her only child, her precious son, and she pretty much thinks I'm a decorated NYPD hero or something-"_

"_Now I know where that ego comes from…"_

"_-so by extension, she'll love you." He doesn't know if it's the "love" or the family thing, but something about that has freaked her out, he can tell from how he tenses up. "But if you don't want to come-"_

"_I'll come."_

"_You will?"_

_She shrugs, a pained expression on her face. "I have to hear this talk about her precious hero baby boy."_

"_Um, yeah, just so you know, I don't encourage it."_

_She lets out a soft chuckle. "Sure you don't, babe. Doesn't sound like you at all."_

_He draws her close again, wrapping his arms around her waist. She feels warm. _

"Eyes on the road" she reminded him as the lights turned green.

He gave her gloved hand a squeeze before letting go. They drove in silence for a while, watching as the streetlights blurred outside. There wasn't much left to be said. He felt like there should be something left to say, some deep, unspoken thing he had been holding back maybe and that he would never get a chance to tell her now, but nothing came to mind. The heat of the car made him drowsy, so he turned it down.

"I'm sorry it didn't work out." She said it matter-of-factly, although it had clearly taken her a while to consider this.

"Me too. But I'd do it again, anyway."

"Do it again?"

"Well…not everything…" No, he couldn't go through the past few months a second time, that was not how he had meant it. She would misunderstand him, and now this would all turn into yet another fight and…

"But us. Yeah, me too." She leaned back her head, sighing. "I do love you, you know."

"I love you, too." He was glad of the excuse to say it again. Once it was out there, it seemed ridiculously easy. There was nothing to be afraid of.

"But there's no point if we're unhappy."

"None at all." They hadn't agreed this much about anything in…well, ever. He had read somewhere once that you couldn't expect to be happy all the time, that that wasn't what life was about. It seemed like the kind of quote of the day you might read at the waiting room of a doctor's office. But hadn't they earned their right to happiness at last? When would it finally be their turn? One of these days, you had to get it, didn't you? He didn't want complicated anymore. Simple happiness for a simple guy, that was how it should go. It was hard to believe that that didn't entail her, that they wouldn't somehow, somewhere, years from now, remain connected.

"You've been good to me." Something about that didn't feel like a compliment, but like a debt.

"So have you. Hey, can we not get all…sentimental here? I'm trying to drive." For months, he had wanted her to talk to him, but now that she was doing it, it felt wrong. He didn't want this.

"Okay." She exhaled deeply, leaning on her elbow against the window. "Okay."

_Always will._ If she had left out that last part. If they had talked earlier. If he had the energy left to fight. If things were different.


	3. April 2014

_Author's Note:__ I am the worst, the most inconsequential. (Hey, have I mentioned that wine serves as a great motivator for writing?) Anyway, here's another unplanned baby. Thank you so much for your kind reviews! Always lovely to hear from you. It makes me feel less crazy for putting these things on the internet and motivates me more than I can say. Even seeing an email in my inbox that says "Review:" gives me that little burst of joy. So Christmas reviews, anyone? ;) There isn't much Christmas spirit in this, but happy holidays to all of you and a good start into the year 2015! Or, if any of you just happen to be German: Frohe Weihnachten und einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr!_

_Disclaimer:__ I obviously stole "but he had no face for his fists" from 'The Three Dark Kings' by Wolfgang Borchert (indirect Christmas spirit?), although the phrase is often translated differently. Not sure how Borchert would feel about being used for fanfiction. I bow to him._

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><p>"Good work, Detective. I will need your full report ASAP."<p>

Great. That was just fantastic, writing an interim report before the assignment was even done. He rubbed his eyes, trying to stifle a yawn. "I'll type it up first thing tomorrow."

He could practically hear Tucker's raised eyebrows over the phone. "Now would be better."

"Lieutenant, with all due respect" –which wasn't much respect- "I've been on the road for the past three days. I guarantee you, I will write a better report in the morning." He just stopped himself from counting out the work hours. Tucker hated whining.

"Fine." That was quick. "Just make sure it's detailed, I won't have time to go over it tomorrow."

"Yes, sir." _Let me kiss your ass for you, sir. _He was about to hang up and finally sink down on the uncomfortable looking bed, when he heard Tucker clearing his throat at the other end of the line. "Anything else?"

"You haven't been following the news, have you?"

"I've been a little busy tracking interdistrict drug protection deals." Sassy answers were another thing his boss wasn't exactly fond of. "Why?"

"You…" He hesitated. "I'm not interested in your private business, but you haven't been in contact with Sergeant Benson, have you?"

He bit the inside of his cheek at the unexpected mention of his very recent ex-girlfriend. The past few days had been a welcome distraction, an excuse not to actually figure anything out beyond taking a suitcase and crashing somewhere. "Why?" What had happened in her department now that he wasn't supposed to discuss with her? He was kind of fed up with all the drama.

"There's something you should know. I can't discuss details with you, but you will find out about the incident, anyway."

"What incident?" This was bad, something was off here. Tucker didn't tiptoe. Either he chose to tell you something, or he didn't.

"Brian-"

"What happened?" His vague apprehension blew up into fear in an instant. Tucker generally called him "Detective", except when he barked "Cassidy" at him, but not his first name. "Is everything all right?"

"Benson is safe now; she is out of danger."

_Why would she be in danger?_, he thought stupidly. The words didn't make sense to him – for an instant. Then, his mind flashed through the scenarios, each more terrible than the next, mixing actual incidents with possibilities. _A suspect took a shot at her, a perp took her hostage, someone ran amok at the precinct, she was assaulted during an interrogation, there was a car crash during a pursuit, but she probably got shot, oh no, she got shot, she got shot._ "What happened to her? She's safe?" He clung to that one word, willing his mind to stop for long enough so he could pay attention. "What's going on?"

"William Lewis-"

"Lewis?!" A bitter taste rose in his mouth, and for a moment, he thought he might retch. He pictured the psycho he had only seen on that last day in court. Lewis trying to make eye contact with Olivia, again and again. _"She wanted all of it."_

"Cassidy, I need you to listen to me without interrupting. Lewis escaped from prison. He killed two people, used other people to get to her and took a kid hostage. She made the bright decision to go after him. There was a search for her, Lewis is dead now. Beyond that, I can't tell you much."

It took him a second to process this stoical version of a series of life changing events that seemed to have taken place in that short, short time he had been away. He sat down on the bed, clutching the edge with one hand. Lewis was dead, but the relief was tainted by confusion and doubts. "_Made the bright decision to go after him."_ "What about her? Is she…did she get hurt?"

"Not to my knowledge, but she is still at the hospital."

The full reality of the situation started to hit him at the word "hospital" and the inherent doubt in "not to my knowledge". "What's that supposed to mean?"

"That she is being examined and is not judged fit to give a statement now."

"How did she go after him? How did he even get out of prison?" This was unreal, like a story that he could argue away rationally because it seemed too implausible to be true. He was trying to process all of it, grappling with Tucker's words and trying to catch him out in an inconsistency, something that would explain why he would be saying such things. Because if this were true, why the hell would they have been talking about forms and reports and more work?

"As to that, I can't make a definitive statement, not while the fault analysis is ongoing."

"Why didn't she get a protective detail when a serial killer who's obsessed with her went after her?"

"She did."

"Well, they didn't do a good job, did they, of protecting her?" Anger flared against Lewis, against his superior and his calm voice, against someone who had to be responsible for this. He should have been there. "Why didn't you call me earlier?" As in, the second Lewis escaped from prison.

"You know I can't discuss details of the case with you, given your personal involvement."

"The _case_?!" _Not again, not again, not again._ "What case?" Lewis was dead, gone for good. Lewis was dead. How was Lewis dead?

"Again, you know there needs to be a strict separation between your work and this, which is precisely why I didn't call you off your case, and why I am telling you now."

Why hadn't she called him? Of course she wouldn't call him for help per se, but why couldn't she have called him? "Is she in trouble?" The Lieutenant's lack of response told him all he needed to know. She had killed him, or if not she, someone had upon arrival, but most likely, it had been her. "This was Lewis, after everything he did to her-" –which Tucker knew more about than he did- "he was a dangerous, sadistic pig-"

"This conversation ends here" his boss stated firmly, but not unkindly. "Now is not the time for questions. Take the night off, Cassidy."

"Yeah, I…I should…"

"I expect your report tomorrow." With that, Tucker hung up.

Brian's fingers automatically found her in his contacts, swiping across the display that was smudged with his prints. The familiar beeping started, once, twice, three times. Her phone was on. Four. _Please, answer._ He needed to hear her voice. Five. His heart sank as the familiar, nondescript standard message came. It seemed to take forever until he got a chance to speak. "Hey, I only just heard, I…it's Brian. I'm sorry, I just heard. So call me back when you hear this message, when you get a chance. Please call me back."

_She is lying on something on between a bed and a treatment table with her upper body elevated, her arm connected to a drip for rehydration, electrolytes and so on, instructed to rest for the moment while they are off to document every little detail somewhere. Her other arm is in a sling, and the gash on her forehead has been tended to. They have given her fresh clothes, too, probably some deceased stranger's hospital clothes, while her own have been taken into evidence. The random thought crosses his mind that he should probably pick up some new clothes for her somewhere, just basics, because it seems necessary, but he doesn't even know her size. How can he not know her size after all this time? _

_After the hours it has taken to conduct the rape kit and provide medical care, hours of soft-spoken nurses, of seeing her briefly, of waiting outside with Nick in silence, of grilling Nick for information, of having Cragen talk meaningless words at him, this is the first time he is actually alone in a room with her. It is strangely quiet in here now, with everything that he knows is going on outside. She is lying completely still, staring up at the ceiling and probably trying to avoid moving at all because it hurts, judging from how she winced when she leaned back. _

_He wants to hold her hand, her good hand, but he knows better than that. Physical contact could be unbearable right now. So he has sat down right beside her, within arm's reach, but not so she has to face him all the time. There is only the silence between them now, and sitting through another second of it seems impossible. Her face holds the familiar, frozen expression of shock and exhaustion, although it is not an expression that he is familiar with from her. He has watched this kind of situation from the outside many times before, with strangers, but being inside is different. The injuries, the blood earlier, the smell, the dead look in her eyes, these things shouldn't be surprising, but they are scary as hell. Being inside, you can avoid saying or doing the wrong thing, but there seems to be no right thing to do. There is absolutely nothing you can do that will make it all better._

"_You want some water?" He breaks the silence, because he can't not. He has to stay in the moment now, to remain focused and not think beyond it, not imagine the details of what happened to her or wonder what will happen now or get all emotional. That's not his job. _

"_No." Her voice is hoarse, her lips dry and cracked with a hint of blood at the top. _

"_Anything else I can do?"_

_For a split second, he expects her to rebuff him, but she doesn't today. A polite "no, thanks" is what she mutters at the ceiling. Today, she is letting things happen, examinations, questions, being led from one room to another._

"_Okay." He wipes his sweaty palms against his jeans. "Are the painkillers kicking in?"_

_It takes her a moment to answer that one. "I don't know."_

"_They will." It's a goddamn stupid thing to say, because he actually doesn't know if or when they will, and he regrets it instantly. "Sorry."_

_She throws him a brief glance and opens her mouth to speak, but closes it again just as quickly. 35 hours – that is how long it took them to even realize she was gone. Days of torment, a trashed apartment, Nick's stony-faced explanation of what they found at the beach house. But she has saved herself, and she is back. He blinks more rapidly, fighting against the sting in his eyes. She is back._

_She is struggling to stay awake, he suddenly realizes, as he sees her eyes fluttering closed for extended amounts of time. She is done answering his questions. "Hey, if you want to close your eyes for a moment, that's okay. I'll stay right here, I won't move."_

_She closes her eyes briefly, grimacing, and opens them again. "I don't."_

He was clutching his phone, as if staring at it would somehow make her call him sooner. He realized he hadn't asked Tucker which hospital she was at, and although he had a pretty good guess as to that, he didn't want to be rushing about the city blindly, and definitely didn't want to just show up without a heads up. But he couldn't just do nothing. What if she didn't have her phone on her, what if it had been taken into evidence or Lewis had tossed it out? He could call Amaro. Nick would know more, Nick would give him information. Olivia had told him explicitly not to call her partner just because he couldn't get a hold of her, unless it was an emergency, but this was exactly that. As he went into his contacts again, his phone began to buzz, an unfamiliar number flashing across his screen.

"Cassidy."

"Hey. It's me" she greeted him in a small voice, but it was enough for the moment.

His stomach clenched with apprehension and relief. "Liv, hi. I was just going to call Nick." It came out like a single word that he nearly stumbled over. "Are you-"

"I'm okay, Bri, I'm fine." Just the reply he could count on from her, the one that actually told him far less than her flat tone did.

"They said you're in hospital?"

"Not to stay. I can go home later. They're just…collecting evidence." Her voice shook slightly at the last two words, and his heart sank.

"Jesus, Liv…" What kind of evidence? "Are you hurt?"

"No, it's not like that. It's nothing like that."

He was pretty sure of what she meant by "that", but couldn't think about it now. How long had she been with him, where had she been, what had happened? These were the wrong questions for the moment. "Good."

"Lewis is dead."

"I heard." He wanted to know how, but she shouldn't trust him with the information because he could be asked about it later. Not on the phone, anyway. "I'm glad."

"The girl is okay. He killed her mom though." She wasn't making much sense, but this seemed important to her. It was like she was trying to give a mechanical lecture on the meaning of a story.

"The hostage, the one you were trying to help?" That much he had pieced together from Tucker's story.

"He wasn't really interested in her. She got…unlucky."

"That's terrible, but no one could have foreseen that."

"He knew he could use her. Planned the whole thing."

"But you saved her" he emphasized. _"She made the bright decision to go after him."_ He didn't need to ask her why, or how that had happened.

"He still won" she replied, her voice barely above a whisper now.

It gave him the chills. He wiped his brow, leaning forward onto his elbow. "I'm so sorry. Where are you?"

That pulled her back to the conversation. "Doesn't matter, I won't be hear much longer. They're sending me home."

"I can come pick you up."

"No, it's fine, the guys are taking me home." She was back in command mode again.

"They're there with you?" That much was a relief at least. They would be looking out for her.

"Yeah."

"Okay, I'll come over to the apartment then."

"No, there's no need. You're undercover."

He frowned. This wasn't exactly unexpected coming from her, but after everything they had been through together, it felt unnecessary. "No, it doesn't matter, this is more important."

"No. This isn't like…like last time. I'm okay."

"Look, I get that you're a big girl and all that and I promise I'm not coming to rescue you or something, I just want to see you."It wouldn't be like last time, it couldn't be like that again.

"No, please, _please _don't come over." There was something more than stubbornness in her voice, something pretty close to pleading.

It was the pleading that got to him, his ex-girlfriend pleading for him to stay away. "I just don't want you to be alone. You shouldn't be alone right now."

"I _want _to be alone, Brian. That's all I want right now. Please respect that. It's not about you, it's not…" She faltered. She sounded tired, so very tired. "I appreciate it, really, but it can't be you. It would make…everything…harder. I have to get up tomorrow and face Tucker and explain everything to a panel of people. Again."

The sheer bizarreness of the situation hit him, of how they had only just broken up a few days earlier, of how Lewis had evidently found some massive security leak in the NY State prison system, had succeeded in killing people, in kidnapping, in conning the entire system once again and drawing Olivia of all people out to get to her again. It had happened after all these months, just when a shred of safety had been regained. Maybe it wasn't like last time, but it sure felt like it. After the struggle of the last few months, working so hard to put things back together, they could be broken again so easily in a manner of days. It made him want to scream, to smash things, to kill Lewis himself if he weren't already dead. But he had no face for his fists. He had only powerlessness. "Shit, Liv…it's like a curse from the universe or something…perfect timing too…"

She breathed heavily into the phone. "I really believed I was done with all that."

"I know. But he's gone for good now."

"Yeah."

"Sure you don't want me to come over?" Of course she was, Olivia rarely changed her mind, but he kept hoping against hope that she was simply refusing him out of pride, that she really, deep down, wanted him to come. If that was the case, he didn't want to miss the cue. And still, he couldn't overstep. He couldn't be the one to "make everything harder".

"Positive."

"Okay. But if you change your mind, even if it's at 4am-"

"I'll call. Thanks."

"Can I call you tomorrow? After?"

"Yeah" she muttered absent-mindedly. "I gotta go now, the nurse is coming back. Bye." She hung up suddenly after her last few words had blurred together, her voice strangely constricted.

He dropped his phone on the bed, burying his face in his hands for a moment, warm fingers pressing against his cheeks and forehead. Then, he looked around for something, for anything aside from his phone that belonged to him. There wasn't much in the small bedroom, nothing that he could use responsibly, because he wasn't the type of guy who liked to trash other people's property. So he picked up the half empty water bottle on his nightstand and threw it across the room with as much force as he could muster. It bounced off the wall with a crack, rolling on the floor and coming to a stop in front of his feet. It had remained intact. Plastic didn't smash well.


	4. January 2015

_Author's Note:__ Continued by popular demand. ;) Not promising more continuation at present because I have commitment issues. Thank you for your kind reviews and all the love! This fic takes place in the same universe as "Exit Route" and "Life Interrupted", just in case anyone is looking to fill in the blanks._

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><p>He came home to find her tidying up furiously, a plastic basket perched on her hip as she was dropping Noah's toys into it while simultaneously brushing some crumbs off the table and onto the floor. That struck him as counterproductive. "Oh! There you are!" She didn't stop whatever she was doing here, which looked a hell of a lot like rushing from one thing to the next without knowing where to start.<p>

"Yeah, I replied to your text an hour ago. Took me longer than expected." He was supposed to return from a three day trip to Pittsburgh that morning, but of course, morning had turned into late afternoon after he had been made to "come along for a quick stop by the office" before they all went home. He hadn't actually been working for three days straight, but sleeping somewhere foreign was always harder, working somewhere else, holding meetings with departments that weren't always friendly to outsiders. Eventually, it had all become a blur of meetings, business lunches and business dinners and other set-ups that were basically designed to make you work more by integrating the necessary survival stuff like food into work. He dropped his bag onto the floor.

"Hm, I noticed." She said it pointedly, in that passive aggressive way he hated when she was trying to make him feel guilty about something.

"Sorry, didn't exactly get a chance to tell you earlier." He couldn't hide the annoyance from his voice, that aggressive exasperation she hated. He hadn't exactly asked for an assignment that took him away the one time she actually had some time off after working the holidays. They had spent some of Christmas morning together with Noah, but that had been it in terms of downtime. He had meant to come home early today, and they were supposed to spend the day together and make up for lost time. Instead, what he managed was annoyance, and what he got wasn't a warm welcome. It was all they had left to give at this point. "What's…this?" he asked, trying to keep it from turning into one more "you should have called!" conversation.

"What does it look like?" She tossed a stuffed elephant into the basket, which was filling up rapidly. There wasn't enough room for all this baby stuff here; there wasn't enough room for any of their three person household. How could such a small person have so much stuff? It was pretty much impossible to clean up, because there was nowhere to put everything. You just ended up shifting the mess around a little. "Oh, and by the way…" She reached into her jeans pocket and dramatically held up a shiny lighter. "Found this up on the shelf there. Why in the world would you leave it lying around? It's dangerous."

He almost laughed. "Not unless Noah's learned to climb shelves in the past three days."

"Try explaining that to the caseworker." She obviously didn't find any of this particularly funny. "You don't even smoke!"

"Not anymore."

"You used to smoke?"

Jesus Christ. Yes, he used to smoke, and he had also lost his virginity at 15. Not exactly dark secrets. "You try being UC for three years without smoking." He reached for the lighter, tucking it away in the inside pocket of his jacket. "But if it means so much to you, I'll keep it locked away with the candles or something."

"Thanks" she replied gruffly.

He half-heartedly picked up the play table that usually had Noah pressing the button that mooed a hundred times in a row and carried it over to its improvised storing space underneath the shelf in the corner. It wouldn't fit, and he accidentally ended up pressing the annoying donkey button in the process, making the toy bray at him. How could this thing not have an off switch? "Where's Noah?" He was eager to say hi, in part because he had missed the little guy, and partly because it would be an escape from whatever had soured the mood here.

"Asleep" she sighed. "Lucy couldn't get him down for his nap earlier, so now it's all delayed and he'll probably be up at 2am again."

"Great. Is he okay?"

"Yeah, he's good." Her lips curled in a fleeting smile. "Thanks to Nick, he now knows the taste of sugar, which I was trying to avoid, but…"

"Impossible."

"Pretty much."

He leaned against the wall, because sitting down on the sofa while she was cleaning up seemed too daring. "So what's up? Why…all this?"

"The caseworker called. She'll be coming for a visit tomorrow."

"Again?" That explained this new need to have a spotless living room when it would only return to its messy state five minutes later. "She doesn't really get the concept of surprise visits, does she, if she's telling you the day before?"

"You'd have to take that up with her." 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' went into the box to join other books about animals in various states.

"I'd leave that one out, it's a classic, it'll look good. Doesn't hurt to show that you're doing smart things with him."

"I don't think me doing smart things is the part she has issues with…"

"No, her issue is that she has an attitude problem. That woman has a major chip on her shoulder." It felt good be united against a common enemy.

"It's like she's just waiting for the next mistake to happen. She wants to catch me at it."

He walked over to the open kitchen, grabbing a glass of tap water while continuing to talk. What he wanted was to get out of his suit, put on lazy pants and chill, but that plan had just been put off. "Not that I'm an expert, but I thought they were short on resources, don't they have any real problem families to check up on? You know, parents who actually abuse their kids?"

"I wish they'd been this diligent with the first few foster homes. Now, suddenly, they want a stay at home mom?"

"Crazy. So what's the plan here, when is she coming over?"

"Early, around eight."

"Wow, 6am wasn't available?" He returned, crouching down on the floor to return the colourful soft blocks to their bucket.

"I know, as soon as Noah is up, I have to do laundry, vacuum-"

"There's plenty of time. And what's she gonna do, count every speck of dust she finds?"

"Who knows, she loves counting every minute I spend at work."

Her tense reply gave him pause. He approached her slowly, wanting to put his hands on her shoulders. "The judge was on your side. And Noah was fine at his last exam, right? Hey, maybe we should take a break for a moment, figure this out and-" _Talk._

She moved away before he could finish, setting down the basket on the floor to fold up the baby blanket that was bunched up on the sofa. "There's no time."

It was pointless to argue that they would do better after a break and some time to relax and get some perspective, that he just wanted to sit with her for a moment. He could see that from the distracted look on her face. All she could think about right now was tomorrow's appointment. He understood that, but she was acting as if he didn't, like being away for three days suddenly meant that he wasn't in this with her. He was the outsider here. "At least we have tomorrow off."

She grimaced. "About that-"

"No. Seriously?"

"It's a big case, there's nothing I can do about it. It happened at that conference." She stopped cleaning up for a moment, rubbing her shiny forehead.

"What happened?"

"A detective got raped."

"What?"

"Her boss did it, who also happens to be Rollins' old boss and there's a whole other story there. And he'll probably get away with it."

This was the sort of messed up shit that made him want to work IA, sometimes at least. "Damn. Sounds bad."

"Yeah." She scanned the papers on the table for a moment before continuing in a flat voice. "The victim, she doesn't want us to pursue it because she's afraid of the consequences, because this guy has a lot of power down in Atlanta, and even if it goes to court, she'll have to testify against him in front of everyone and they'll just argue she liked it rough and she wanted it and…" She turned away from him, interrupting the stream of information. "Anyway, it'll get messy."

"You…uh…are you okay working this case?" He assessed her body language, the tension in her hunched shoulders, her inability to stay still.

"Jesus, Bri…" she groaned, bending down to rearrange the items in the basket. "I just said it's a sensitive case, not that I can't work it."

"Right. But it makes sense that it would be upsetting." He clearly wasn't allowed to bring up how it had been exactly one year now since court, or that she could be identifying with the victim because she was a detective, too, and how awfully familiar "she liked it rough" sounded. So he didn't.

"Thanks for the observation." She regarded him coolly. "Anyway, how did your thing go?"

His thing, also known as "the convenient change of subject", was a string of pointless meetings he hadn't wanted to take home with him. He didn't even want to think about it anymore, least of all the local department's insistence that there was no link between the Pittsburgh and the NYPD arrests that had quietly gone away, because there was in fact no such problem in Pittsburgh, duh. So he would officially not think about it. If you asked him, Olivia's problem was that she always took her work issues home with her. But you couldn't get that stuff stuck in your head without going crazy. Although sometimes, it seemed like you didn't have a choice. "Fine."

"So things are okay there?"

"Yep. It's just…Pittsburgh."

She didn't press the matter, although she gave him a sort of questioning look that he didn't quite know the meaning of. What was he supposed to tell her? It was work. This was a new year, a year that was still young and held a whiff of change.

_He sinks down on the wooden step beside her as she loosens the straps, kicks off her sandals and begins to rub the outside of her foot, flexing her toes. "Just for a minute…" He feels out of breath, warm despite the wind and like his vision is about 50% restricted. Everything seems to be happening in slow motion and he is the observer watching it through a screen with black edges. Behind him, the music and lights are pounding and blurring in that steady rhythm of generic awfulness, and he can actually feel the music in the floorboards as well. _

"_I feel old" she blurts out, and although it's not exactly a party for college kids but for loud American couples in their 30s and 40s who can afford a fancy vacation, he gets the point. This isn't the sort of thing they do. Nothing about this party screams "Brian" or "Olivia" to him._

"_You are old."_

"_So are you. Old and drunk."_

"_I'm not the one who drank from a glass rimmed with sugar. Hello, headache. You're drunker…more drunk…more drunker?"_

_She chuckles, hooking her arm through his. "Case closed." In truth, neither of them is really super drunk –as far as he can judge that in his current state- just very, very tipsy. _

"_We need that guy to decide, what's-his-face, Barba, he looks like he really knows his grammar."_

"_He does. Why are we talking about Barba on a beach?"_

"_I bet he loves the beach" he says, and oh, he can just picture it. _

"_Stop it." She tries to hold back her hair, but the ocean breeze is too strong by now, so it only ends up flying everywhere, hopelessly tangled and impractical. Her cheeks are flushed, and she is in a rare, non-serious, almost giddy mood. This shouldn't be amusing, but it is, what with how she has completely given up on taming her hair, how their feet are bare and they are surrounded by people who usually wear suits but now their clothes are fluttering in the wind as they stiffly try to sway to the music of a 25-year-old DJ. They are sitting on the steps of this gorgeous white open veranda decorated with a garland of colourful lanterns, overlooking a dark beach and oh God, he just accidentally spotted a couple with grey hair making out on one of the beanbags that have been set down on the sand for the party. It's too damn funny. "What?" she asks, because she apparently can't see the obvious._

"_I like vacation Olivia." He smiles at her, and somewhere at the back of his alcohol-soaked brain, a little voice shouts "stop being touchy-feely drunk". _

"_Don't get used to her."_

_Suddenly, they hear cheering behind them, shouts of "happynewyeeear", clinking glasses and singing. A woman in a blue dress staggers past them, rushing down the length of stairs to hug someone on the beach. Further down on another stretch of beach, the fireworks are starting up with flashes of green, purple and orange in the sky, the howling and crackling of volcanoes, crackers and whatnot. "Aw, we missed it!" They are drink-less, champagne-less, unprepared._

"_Oh…happy new year!" She leans in to kiss him. He draws her closer, and he can actually feel her hair tickling his face as it blows around them. She pulls back as the kiss is about to turn up the heat a little, and that's okay, as he has just resolved never to become an old couple making out in public on a beanbag. The colourful lights from behind them are dancing on her face, her eyes sparkling._

"_Happy new year" he mutters, putting his arm around her and glancing up at the fireworks. Are they actually moving closer, or is that just an illusion? _

"_I gotta admit the Bahamas were a pretty great idea" she concedes, smiling contentedly. _

"_Thank you, I'll remind you of that forever and ever." He can't help gloating at his victory. Ha. Take that, skeptics. Take that, destiny._

"_I had no doubt."_

"_Any new year's resolutions?"_

_She shakes her head slowly, watching a small gathering of people who are lighting gigantic sparklers down on the beach. The woman in the blue dress is twirling hers around wildly. "I don't do that."_

"_So the blender you just bought and the smoothies with spinach and crap in them are just a coincidence?"_

"_Circumstantial evidence."_

"The good news is that we closed that case today, so I won't have to go away for a while." He had pictured himself telling her this under different circumstances, the way they would both be happy, relaxing with Noah and the stuffed reindeer he had bought him before realizing that the kid was really too young to "get" Christmas. Lately, Brian often got this picture in his head of what things should be like, what they could be like. They were mostly visions of ordinary situations that looked like cheesy illustrations from gift books with inspiring quotes in them that you bought for people you didn't know too well. It was a lot like things had felt when he had moved in with Olivia the first time, that time when they had both been hopeful and going through so many changes, so it had all seemed pretty fragile and amazing and fresh at once. But more often than not, it didn't work out the way he imagined it. "At least there's nothing that should take me away in the near future."

"That's good." She didn't sound convinced. He knew he kept promising that things would change, and they had, with fewer trips away, fewer undercover assignments that he couldn't return home for, but the unpredictability of life was the same as always. Only it was more complicated now, if, for instance, he got called away while Noah was in hospital. "Can you be here tomorrow for the caseworker's visit?"

"The caseworker?" Oh. He hadn't been prepared for that.

"Yeah, she wants to meet you."

The visit suddenly made more sense. They had submitted a change of household notification a couple of months ago, before all the drama and the caseworker's hostility. It had been kind of a big deal for both of them, and Olivia had insisted on establishing a million rules and boundaries before doing it. No reaction had followed, and his living here as her boyfriend, her roomie, her whatever, had never come up despite the fact that any added person to the household was supposed to be evaluated. That detail had slipped somehow. "Um…yeah. Right. I'll be there. What do you think she'll ask me?"

"I don't know. You're not applying to be a carer, so I guess she'll ask about your role in Noah's life, probably about our relationship. It could get pretty personal."

He didn't feel any more comfortable with this than she sounded. Having a deadline of about 15 or 16 hours to figure out what exactly the story and his role in it was seemed inadequate. He was being evaluated as just "another person over 18 residing in the home", which was fine with him. That was what he was to Noah, he supposed, another undefined person. "Okay."

"Just stay calm and answer her questions. Don't tell her it's none of her business, or get defensive and argue-"

"I'm not an idiot."

"Don't overplay it, either."

"Come again?"

"You know, the bigger your role, the stricter the standards."

"Ah. So it's okay for me to watch Noah when you need me to, it's just not okay for me to tell her about it."

"No, just don't make it harder than it has to be."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Something about this really rubbed him the wrong way. He started pacing up and down. The living room table stood between them like a block. "Are you actually afraid I'll make you look bad in some way?"

"That's not true. I just don't want you to give her cause."

"Well, okay, what is my role? Maybe if you give me a script, it'll be easier for me to remember my lines."

She rolled her eyes. "Wow, I knew you'd react like this, turn it into this big deal-"

"I'm not cause or a risk factor, I'm just an extra person who's there when things get tough."

"Are you, though?"

"Whenever I can be, yes! You know I'm trying to get out of IAB, what do you want me to do, tell Tucker to piss off if he gives me an order?"

"Shh, lower your voice, Noah's sleeping!" she hissed in the least effective whisper ever. Good thing that little boy could sleep through pretty much anything. "What do you think I do, with the squad chaos and Dodds breathing down my neck?"

He couldn't argue with that, because of course, she had the bigger job, saving special victims and being the boss while also being supermom, and she knew just when to bring that up. "You usually say no when I offer to babysit and then when you do want me to be there, you tell me about thirty seconds before. And then when I can't just drop everything, it's proof to you of how I'm never there. It doesn't work that way."

Her jaw dropped. "That's the best twist of the truth that I've heard in a while."

"Whatever, it's your call. It would just be helpful if you could make up your mind."

"Noah is my responsibility; it's not your job to take care of him."

"So then what, exactly, am I not doing?"

"It's not what you're not doing, it's just…" She sat down on the couch, stooped forward, running one hand through her hair. "It's counting on you and on this whole thing to work. It's all happening so fast and Noah needs stability."

"Noah…"

"And you weren't the one who chose this, it all just kind of happened and it's all undefined, and I'm making you a part of Noah's life."

"Don't you get it? I _want_ to be a part." He just didn't know which part. He was okay with playing "another person over 18 residing in the home" if that meant "mom's seriously awesome boyfriend", but he didn't know what exactly that entailed. She was so protective of her foster son.

"I know." She regarded him sadly, and it felt like she was looking at him for the first time today.

He couldn't hold her gaze, so he sat down beside her on the sofa, leaning forward. His hands opened and closed again. "I just don't know how after all this time, after everything that-" He stopped himself short because he didn't quite know how to complete that sentence. "How you can still not trust me. Do you not want me here?"

"I do" she said quietly, but what he heard more than that was the fact that she didn't deny the statement before the question.

"So then…?"

"It's just not gonna be easy."

"No shit. We need a better plan."

She shook her head. "I thought we were starting to get into a routine here."

"Yeah, me too." Since he had moved back in, things actually hadn't been going so badly. There was less time than ever for anything besides day to day juggling of responsibilities, but the fact that things revolved around Noah also meant that they had needed to get their shit together.

"But I'm worried about tomorrow."

It was a relief when she finally stated the obvious. It was as if the problem were lying in a box in front of him now, and he could poke and prod at it and go into fixing mode, better than with all this vague future uncertainty trust stuff. "So I guess I'll try to make a good impression. We'll tell her I'm involved in a…supporting capacity because I live here and we're in a relationship, but I'm not a carer because I'm often away for work."

She nodded. "She won't like that you're in law enforcement, too."

"No, but it doesn't make me a threat to be living with, either."

"Not that. But…"

"But?"

"You've been accused of a sexual offence" she said awkwardly, not meeting his gaze.

The words burned, although he couldn't even get angry about them. It was the truth, and he had been waiting for this to come back and bite him in the ass from the start. He generally tried not to think about the past, and particularly not about anything relating to his time with Ganzel, but this one was hard to forget. "The charges were dropped. I was framed; that's public record."

"You know that's not the question they ask."

"No. It's not." Once you ticked yes on that box, you could pretty much leave out the "explain the circumstances" lines underneath. It was an absolute no go that would come up on every application for the rest of his life. He might not be guilty, but people would always wonder. The disgust the words alone elicited ran deeper than reason.

"She might not ask. But if she does, you'll need to explain."

"Right. Right." He rubbed his dry eyes. "Gotta get my story straight."

"Yeah." Her knuckles brushed against the outside of his hand before she curled her fingers around it. "I'm on your side."

The reason she said it remained the big elephant in the room. "Listen, Liv, if tomorrow doesn't go so well-"

"Let's cross that bridge when we get to it."

"You can't take any risks. I get that."

"Not before the adoption, I won't." She looked at him, and her expression betrayed that she knew as well as him that this could mean goodbye once more, at least for now.

_It wouldn't be so bad, _he told himself, _it would be just for a while. We'll be fine. _But being considered a potential negative influence to Noah by anyone was bitter. If there was one thing he couldn't comprehend at all, it was people who wanted to hurt children. "Okay" he mumbled. "So I'm gonna go take a shower and think about my answers."

"All right. I should get Noah up soon, anyway, or he really won't go to sleep tonight at all."

"I'll check on him." He got up from the sofa, heading towards the bedroom. Suddenly, it truly seemed like an eternity since he had last seen him. The kid was at that age where the world was full of mysteries and he learned something new every day. As a consequence, every day he missed was a pretty big deal.

"Brian" she called after him as his hand was already on the doorknob.

"What?" He half turned around.

She looked at him with a conflicted frown, like she was trying to pick the right thing to say out of a hundred options. "You're, um, you're not a risk. You are a supporting factor."

This was probably supposed to give him some warm, fuzzy feeling, but today, it didn't. His mind was already on tomorrow, at least until the second he opened the door and was greeted by a joyful "Mama!" and a momentarily startled look when it wasn't, in fact, Mama. Noah was already sitting up in his crib, and seemed to be perfectly happy squishing a soft toy cube against the bars. It was pretty cool when he could occupy himself like that.

"Hey there, buddy! Ooh, you're up! Did you have a nice nap?"

The boy's face lit up, and he immediately stretched out his arms to be picked up. "Bobo!" Bobo was, apparently, an acceptable abbreviation of Brian, and the only other word he used besides "Mama". Then again, it was also the word Noah used for his stuffed animals, as well as any solid food (but not drinks), making it a dubious honour. Brian wasn't sure how exactly he had ended up in the food and toy category, but given how high in esteem both food and stuffed animals were held, he had decided to see it as an expression of love. Either that, or, as Liv had suggested, he looked like a piece of bread.

"Good to see you, too!" He smiled and lifted Noah up high into the air a few times, making him laugh, before planting a kiss against his soft infant hair. "Let's go see what Mama's up to."


	5. May 2015

_Author's Note:__ Welcome to the final installment of this "one shot". Excuse the sentiment, I couldn't help myself on this one so it's a bit different in tone. As always, I would appreciate any and all reviews of any length, because they are incredibly rewarding. No need to log in, just say hi in any way you feel comfortable. Enjoy!_

* * *

><p>The reconstructed park was a modern, urban product, rather than a green retreat with meadows and playgrounds. It felt a bit stiff and clean for his liking, with the many stone and wooden paths winding around the artificial pond that were probably supposed to have some symbolic meaning which eluded him. It was the kind of park destined for quick outdoor lunch breaks from court, not the type where you could spend an entire Sunday. Everything had been done on purpose, with the grass a little too short, the trees obviously lined up to match and provide shade for the benches. He was watching her for a moment as she sat on one of them, facing sideways with her legs crossed so she could keep an eye on her son and encourage him in his clumsy climbing attempt. She looked cheerful, chatting away to Noah, but then again, she usually did with him.<p>

It was the little boy who spotted him first as he crossed the concrete courtyard at a brisk pace. He immediately abandoned his attempt to climb up onto the ledge to the grassy patch, and came running towards him. Everything Noah did was done running or climbing these days. "Wian!"

"Hey, Noah!" He scooped him up, throwing him high up in the air once before setting him down again. The child giggled and hugged his leg, muttering something incomprehensible as Brian ruffled his thickening brown hair. With his leg stuck in place, he couldn't exactly move, so he was glad to see Olivia hurrying towards him, her face radiant with joy. And so he knew, he just knew from the light in her eyes, from the way she wordlessly kissed him in the middle of a public park at lunch time. Her happiness began to spill over, and he could feel it tugging at his facial muscles, spreading to his ears and down his neck. He drew her into a reunion-at-the-airport-style hug, too stunned for words, and they remained there for a moment until Noah complained.

* * *

><p>"<em>I'm off, too" Elliot points out the obvious as he puts on his jacket. He could have just left with Munch a minute earlier, but no, he has to make his own exit. "We're in court early tomorrow, remember?" It's an unmistakably pointed remark he throws at them, accompanied by a disapproving glance.<em>

"_Save the parenting for your kids" Olivia retaliates, a small smile on her lips that softens the blow._

_He smirks back ever so slightly, a knowing smirk, before slipping away into the crowd. "Have fun."_

_The second he is gone, Brian takes a much needed swig of his beer. "Stabler needs to mind his own business."_

_She shrugs, trying a little too hard to make it seem like she doesn't care about her partner's last comment. "He has a family to get home to." Like that was what this was about._

_He does, they don't. They are still here, once again the last two people left behind at the bar, and there's no point in even pretending that it's a coincidence. It has been a long day, but right now, he has taken his tie off and she has thrown her blazer across the free stool next to her, there is bad country music playing for no apparent reason and someone standing close to them smells of bad aftershave. They have been exchanging funny stories that probably wouldn't be funny to anyone who doesn't share their morbid sense of work humour, and their conversation is marked by subtle touches, a hand on the arm here and there. They are in a different time zone. "How many kids is it again?"_

"_Four." She rubs her neck like she needs a massage, and he can sympathise._

"_Wow."_

"_You gonna run after him to pat him on the back?"_

"_Nah." He turns to face her, resting his arm on the bar. His leg brushes against hers. "Do you ever want kids?"_

"_Brian!"_

"_Olivia." He is clueless what he's said to provoke her shocked expression. She visibly draws back from him, as if sitting too close to someone were the primary source of unwanted pregnancies. _

"_That's a pretty personal question."_

_Her indignation at "getting personal" is almost funny when he thinks about the three times they have ended up semi-drunkenly -albeit not as drunk as either of them pretended- hooking up, the way she was totally fine with things getting rather intense in the car and the encouraging things he has definitely heard her whisper while they were otherwise occupied. "Jesus, I didn't say 'let's make baby, Liv', I'm just asking in general."_

_That definitely doesn't seem to reassure her, as she is still scowling at him, her lips forming a thin line. She takes a slow, a very slow sip of her beer before replying. "I guess I do, someday."_

"_Me too." Behind them, some jackass is hooting because he beat some other jackass at darts. _

_Her thumb draws across the condensation on the bottle's surface as she is weighing her words. "Look, this isn't going to happen tonight. Sorry."_

"_Okay" he shrugs, pretending that he hasn't been dying for the others to leave so they can get a chance to be alone together and talk. Well, talk and other things, things that are very much related to how much her new lipstick is distracting him when he is watching her speak, reminding him of hurried kisses in the dark. "You know, we could just go out for drinks sometime –or food, or both- without…uh, the other thing."_

_She smiles at that. "I think we're allowed to say the word 'sex'."_

"_You know what I mean." They have been at this point before, and he can't believe he is dumb enough to try again. But he just can't seem to leave it alone, and it doesn't help that she says it can't happen again every time, and then it does. Can't they quit the game and just be boring grown-ups?_

"_Yes. I know." She turns to him again, and he can sense how her tone is shifting and she is moving into the breathy register reserved for crime victims, children and possibly wounded puppies. "But we've been over this; it's a bad idea because of work."_

"_We're not gonna work together forever."_

"_Sure, but we do now and I'm just not looking for anything like that at the moment."_

"_Like what? Like a normal date?" He isn't exactly asking her to marry him._

"_You're a nice guy-"_

"_Yeah, yeah, save it. I get the gist." If there's one thing he doesn't need, it's the humiliating rejection speech that looks for excuses and makes it clear that she is searching for some other, ominous Prince Charming who may or may not show up. That's the thing with Olivia, though, she genuinely doesn't seem like the romantic type and it is this that makes him try and try again. But even he has a bottom line, and he will not be treated like an idiot. He needs to get all this bullshit out of his head._

"_Come on, Bri, it's just-"_

"_I said I get it." He picks up his beer bottle again. "Just drop it."_

* * *

><p>They had sat down on the bench, his arm around her as they were watching Noah chase some pigeons with boundless energy. "You said you'd call me the minute you found out" he remarked. Instead, he had received a cryptic text message with instructions where to meet her, and had been forced to explain to Tucker why he really needed to take an extended lunch break today. "Scared me there for a moment."<p>

"Sorry, I just…wanted to tell you like this, I guess."

"Yeah." He couldn't help making a mental note of how important it seemed to her to tell him the moment she found out. One more point for the relationship tally.

Technically, they had known that the chances that this adoption would not go through were pretty small, given Judge Linden's sympathy, Langan's consent and the caseworker's final comments before she had made her report. It wasn't like it had all hung on this one meeting; there had been a process of making a petition of adoption, and this final court date was really just the last formality. But until it was all finalized on paper, Olivia had stoically refused to be happy. He knew she had half expected Noah's biological father to show up at the last minute, rushing into the courtroom like in a bad soap opera to reclaim his parental rights. She had spent ages researching every possible scenario, looking up cases where it had been decided that the father had abandoned his rights due to the fact that he had had no contact with his child. It turned out she hadn't needed all that, which was a good thing because he didn't know how she could have coped with another legal battle. Noah was here to stay permanently, and although it was obvious that nothing could have changed Olivia's maternal feelings towards him either way, something had shifted. A huge sense of relief was hanging over them. Big brother had stopped watching. Normal life could start.

His fingers caressed her arm.. "So it's official. Nothing can change it."

"For good. Part of me can't believe it, that it's not still up in the air and that it simply worked, just like that."

"That nothing ruined it all in the end?"

She nodded, her lips pressed together. "It seems weird, for us."

"You're not gonna turn this into something dark, are you? This is good news."

"I'm just processing." She made a vague hand gesture.

"I get it. But it hasn't exactly been an easy road, it won't be."

"I know."

"Maybe you're just the best person to be Noah's mom, and that's all there is to it. Maybe…maybe it's just time for good things to happen now, because it's right, you know?" Maybe the universe wasn't full of shit for once, and she wouldn't be punished for just being happy about it.

"Maybe." She pressed out the word, fighting against the tears that were threatening to fall. It was a random switch of mood, but not surprising.

"You okay, babe?"

"Yeah." She reached up and touched his hand. "Things are good." She had told him once, in a rare moment of "sharing stuff", that there was always this negative voice, this mental commentary that she had to work to keep at bay. He didn't really want to know which shapes that voice took, but this was not a place for it. Not today. Maybe they were doing well. Maybe they could finally "figure things out", although he wasn't certain what a sorted out version of their lives would look like. For the past few years, they had always been waiting for one thing or another to get better or to be decided. Always moving from one thing to the next, waiting for normality to return or develop. What did you do when the waiting was done?

"I'm glad you're happy" he muttered under his breath, hoping it didn't come off as condescending.

"I love you." The casual statement wrapped itself around them like a blanket that didn't quite fit. It wasn't a huge revelation or anything, but she generally wasn't The One Who Said It First.

He smiled. "Yeah, you're not so bad, either."

They were distracted by Noah staggering mid-turn and falling lightly onto his butt. The little boy grimaced, torn between crying and just getting up and rushing after the pigeon. "Oops! You're okay!" she called brightly.

He gave his mother a confused look and came running towards them, then turned to his stroller instead, trying to open the bag attached to it.

"Are you thirsty? Here, drink something." She had to rummage around the bag for a moment until she found his bright red water bottle that had small airplanes on it, opening it.

"No!" Noah wasn't super chatty for his age, although the paediatrician said that he was still in the normal range for boys, but he sure loved that word. He took a sip of water anyway, refusing to let his mother close his bottle for him again with a firm "Noah!".

"Do you want to eat something?" She took out a small green clipbox, loosening the clips, and he grabbed it from her eagerly, fumbling the pieces of raw pepper and cucumber with interest without eating them. When he threw one on the ground on purpose, she took it back from him with a "no, we don't throw food", trying to interest him in an empty container instead.

He started whining, attempting to get into the bag himself to poke around in it. "Nononono!"

"That's all we have left. The rest is all gone." She let him convince himself of it, and he was not pleased in the least, mumbling in an accusing tone with an "all gone" thrown in for good measure.

"God, he's like you when the fridge is empty" Olivia commented with a smirk.

Brian decided to intervene before this turned into a frustrated pre-nap tantrum. "Look, Noah, there's a dog!" The kid loved dogs, so when he wasn't fooled by the cheap distraction attempt or the large Golden Retriever to their left, he knew it was serious.

It was the sound of Olivia's phone ringing that did the trick, although it didn't exactly help, because now Noah wanted to answer it, of course, and was vocal about making his presence known.

"Hey, Nick! No, you're not-" She laughed, stroking Noah's head as he tried to reach for the object of desire. "-it's fine, Brian's here."

He decided to give her some privacy, picking the little boy up. "Come on, buddy, let's find some more places to climb."

"Up, up!"

* * *

><p><em>He opens the door, and from the second he trips over some shoes, he knows his mood is only going to get worse as the evening continues. "I'm home!" he shouts to avoid startling her, knowing that she must have heard the door. Things continue their downward streak as his jacket falls off the overcrowded hook, and taking notice that the bedroom door is closed definitely doesn't help. A closed door means withdrawal, and it's only 6pm, and he just doesn't think he can do the worried boyfriend thing all evening and try not to talk about the obvious while she puts as good a face as she can on wanting to disappear. He can't sit on the sofa in silence, filling the emptiness with idle chit chat and trying to distract her. It almost makes him wish he were back stuck in traffic from the Bronx. He is pissed off at everything today, but he can't be pissed off at her, not without being an asshole. So he respects the closed door, about to help himself to a beer from the fridge when she calls him, the sound muffled. <em>

_He walks over and pokes his head through the bedroom door. "Hey, Liv." He is surprised to find her sitting on the bed cross-legged, freshly showered and dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, her notebook in her lap. _

"_Hey back. How was your day?"_

"_Peachy. Stopped no crimes, solved no crimes, got bossed around by a dickhead who thinks he's running Homeland Security. The usual." And now his girlfriend is only half listening, half glancing at the screen, because nothing about what he has to say is new. Because it's not like anything interesting ever actually happens at work. Which is where he will spend tomorrow, Saturday, too. "What's up?"_

"_I think I found us a place" she says, sounding incredulous. "It's a bit outside our price range, but it's available now, the location is amazing, and just look at it, it's perfect." It's a word she doesn't use often, but more than this out of character gushing, it's her face when she says it that grabs his attention. Her dark eyes light up in a way he hasn't seen since…well, since _before_, her cheeks are flushed, she is relaxed, stretching one leg out in front of her now. _

_His mind immediately jumps to the one hundred things that will, inevitably, be wrong with this place that is too good to be true. It will have a hidden mould problem, the owners will be indebted, the building collapsing, the place will get sold and converted soon. It's what always happens whenever their half-hearted internet searches yield results within their filter range. He knows they have to leave, that this bachelor pad from before is driving both of them crazy, and they so, so need a new start that will somehow fix everything. "Is it, like, three hours away from here?"_

"_No, I told you, it's close. We can easily go check it out - just look at it!" She grabs his arm and pulls him around to her side. _

"_Shit" is the first word that escapes his mouth as she clicks through the photographs of the bright, airy, unfurnished room. He immediately gets the appeal of this open space, and still his eyes instantly wander to the Dollar sign. _

"_It's a little expensive."_

"_A little? That _is_ outside our price range, way outside." He runs one hand down his face, shaking his head. Olivia is usually Miss Sensible, the budgeter who likes nice clothes, but doesn't splurge on spontaneous buys. He is a demoted cop, happy about the extra pay he gets for night shifts. _

"_But the kitchen is included" she explains rationally, like this changes everything. Already, the excitement is beginning to fade, her bright smile is becoming more strained as she tries to stay positive. _

_How he hates to be the bad guy. "It's just a lot of money right now." _

"_If you can show me a cheaper alternative…"_

"_Come on, Liv." She has a point there. A cheaper alternative they don't both hate at first sight, that isn't already gone by the time they contact the landlords, has been an impossible catch. _

"_I just thought we could go take a look, see if we like it." She crosses her arms. "I called them, and they said we could come by tomorrow after your shift. It sounds like there's a chance."_

_This is too fast, her deciding this before talking to him. But she is telling him about it now, clearly hoping for some sort of happy reaction, and she looks so hopeful for the first time in months. He can't ruin the moment. "It looks pretty cool." It feels like they are playing house, just pretending to be grown-ups who take that sort of step. So what if they go, and look, and pretend that everything is okay? "It looks better than anything we've seen for sure."_

"_So we'll take a look and keep an open mind?"_

_He can't help smiling. "I suppose. Just a look."_

* * *

><p>Noah ran back to his mom, wanting to sit in her lap, which was a sure sign that he was getting tired. "Hey, baby." She kissed the top of his head as he snuggled up to her. "It's been a long morning, huh?"<p>

"He's getting harder to keep up with every day." Brian sank down on the bench again, exhausted after only a few minutes of trying to prevent the kid from falling into the pond. Noah seemed to have grown from a baby into an active toddler in an instant, which was fun, but he would never have guessed just how much energy it took. "How did he make it through court this morning?"

"He was actually pretty good, weren't you?" She brushed back his sweaty hair from his forehead. Noah wasn't listening, his gaze becoming unfocused while he fought the oncoming sleep.

"Did Nick need something?" He seriously hoped she wasn't being called into work today. This was a time to enjoy with her son. He wished he didn't have to head back to the office about five minutes ago.

"Oh no, he just called to ask how it went." She leaned back, surveying their surroundings, the lunch breakers sitting on the park benches, talking, taking off their jackets in the warm air as spring transitioned into summer while trying to hide the sweat stains on their shirts. Or maybe that wasn't what she saw at all.

The wood beneath him felt warm, heated up by the sun. There had been sunny summer days in their past, but he could barely recall their outdoor times before that one, awful summer. He turned slightly, looking at her head in profile, the way her arms were loosely wrapped around her son. She looked happy, pensive, but happy. What was going on inside her head? Where were they headed? These questions were still there, but they seemed smaller than they had a year, two years ago. "What are you thinking about?" he asked.

She smiled, shaking her head. "Nothing in particular."

**The End.**


	6. Epilogue

_Author's Note:__ Surprise! (I swear it was a surprise to me as well…damn these characters and the life of their own they lead.) Also, thank you, love you. _

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><p>The waves were less high than he remembered them, the sea much calmer than he would have expected it to be during the season of fall storms. He felt the need to point this out over and over again, which led her to explain sensibly that it really wasn't that surprising, since he had been a child at the time. But not a wimpy kid, he pointed out, and from here on, the conversation turned in circles, which only ever ended when she checked her phone for about the tenth time this afternoon.<p>

"He's _fine_" Brian groaned. "My mom has done this before, you know."

"Not for the whole day, and she's looking after three kids under five, that's cra- that's pretty exhausting."

"It'll be good for him to be around other kids." If he were being honest, he was a little worried himself, because his baby cousin Rosa's kids were running pretty wild and Noah was the youngest among them. He had never had the pleasure of babysitting them, and he wasn't keen on it, but he felt it best to leave that part out. His poor mother probably wouldn't make this offer again anytime soon, as crazy as she was about Noah. He would never hear the end of how she had lost all hope that she would _ever_ have grandchildren (this statement was usually accompanied by her eyes growing misty), and he just wished for the sake of his dignity that she would stop emphasizing to his girlfriend that she was so glad he had finally "found a woman", that they had "worked it out". "He can play with them."

"More like parallel play beside. Or be treated like a living doll by."

"He'll survive."

"He'll survive?" She raised her eyebrows. "I'm not the one who suggested we should run a criminal background check on everyone Noah ever meets, including Nick's mother."

"You never know." Truth be told, that suggestion had probably had a lot to do with Amaro's holier-than-thou attitude, the way he liked to point out that he was a parent –congrats on spreading your sperm around, man!- and how good he was with Noah, as Olivia liked to tell him.

"I hope she doesn't let them watch TV…"

"Otherwise he'll clearly turn out nearly illiterate, like me. Man, it's a wonder I grew up good."

She nudged his arm with her elbow, finally distracted from her phone. "Who says you turned out good?"

"You're lucky that water is too cold to throw you in." He reached for her hand, and their fingers interlaced loosely as they were walking side by side, facing the strong wind. "Can we just have some time off and enjoy…fucking…nature without stressing out?"

She exhaled deeply. "Okay, okay."

This whole walk along the beach thing had actually sounded more romantic in theory than it was in practice. The beach was pretty damn cold around this season and widely deserted except for them. You couldn't gaze too far out onto the water due to the fog closing in, and grey sand seamlessly transitioned into grey water, which melted into grey sky with clouds hanging low over them. But this wasn't about romance. In his mind's eye, he had the memory of sun, of summers spent running and splashing around in the ice cold water, the sensation of the warm, dry sand under his soles, a visual image of the tide washing in and standing in the water until his feet were buried in the ground, seeing who could hold out the longest. He had never won against the older boys. This walk didn't match that image. Instead, he had sand blowing into his face, hiding between his teeth whenever he opened his mouth to speak. Only the smell was the same as always, that salty, fishy smell of the ocean. Nowadays, it reminded him of other things, of driving around a different beach aimlessly, listening to the radio non-stop, searching for the needle in the haystack without knowing what the needle looked like. He hated that his childhood memories had been replaced like that.

"We should bring Noah here next summer" she suggested thoughtfully. "He'll be old enough to enjoy it."

"Yeah." He was surprised by this idea coming from her, especially given how calmly she inserted it into the silence between them. But Noah was safe; Noah was what they could always fall back on as a subject. "We'll build sand castles."

"You mean you'll build sand castles while he gets bored after five minutes."

"There are plenty of things to do. This place is where I had my first ice cream hangover. I'm serious, too much ice cream can give you the worst headache and nausea." He was babbling now, avoiding the quiet.

"We'll watch the ice cream intake. Exactly how often did you come here?"

"It varied. A lot when I was little, almost every weekend during the summer, less after my dad took off and Mom started working again."

"That had to be hard" she replied softly.

He shrugged. He hadn't thought about this in so long, and he didn't want to make a big deal of it. His childhood had been pretty good, as far as he was concerned. "Not really. I got to go along with my cousins after. I liked it better here in those days, before every stretch of it became this exclusive place for yuppies with vacation houses."

"Mom didn't like coming here. She thought it was a little frivolous."

"Frivolous? It's a beach."

"Yeah, that was just…Mom." She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. The hair at the front was too short to be held in place by her hairclip, and the wind really made it impossible to sustain any style besides his own shortly cropped hair.

"I wish I'd met her." In his imagination, meeting Liv's mother would have explained so much. It was like the key to her soul, or rather, to the guardedness of layer upon layer of secrets. Olivia through the looking glass. Or maybe it wouldn't have explained a thing. She rarely talked about her mom, but it still felt like she was there in a lot that had happened, there in parenting decisions she made about Noah, another person in their relationship.

"She pretty much tried to scare off all my boyfriends, so that would have been a disaster."

"Or a Romeo and Juliet style romance enhancer."

"Romeo and Juliet died" she commented drily, walking off towards the edge of the water.

"What are you doing? Liv?"

She crouched down many feet away from him, taking a fist full of pure, grey sand and letting it trickle through her fingers, blowing away in the wind. He watched her as she remained in the doubtlessly uncomfortable position, her back turned towards him.

* * *

><p><em>He is standing on the beach, forced to stop in his tracks as he doubles over, panting with his hands on his knees. His chest aches, his head is pounding, last year's wound is acting up again, slowing him, disabling him. It feels good to hurt, to do something at all, but he can't let himself be disabled. What the fuck is he doing running on sand? The right house isn't going to have a red X painted on the door. It's pointless, pointless, that voice inside him shouts, and oh God, maybe he should have stayed back at the precinct for news, unable as he is at this point to keep pulling shift after shift at the courthouse. They are searching for her, he tells himself over and over, they will find her. Dead or alive?, the evil voice adds, the voice that he wants to strangle. They are searching with cadaver dogs. He can't afford to lose it now. She is not dead. She is not dead. She is not dead. Lewis displays his victims, he gets off on the pain he inflicts, the victory over the NYPD, if she were dead, they would know. Lewis also discards whatever doesn't entertain him anymore. She is not dead.<em>

_The beach is deserted on a cloudy, windy day like this. No one will have seen a thing. There is no one and nothing left in the world, and suddenly the empty sky feels oppressive above him. He is alone in the world, and he knows with a flash of certainty that there is _nothing_ out there, because if there were a God, then fuck him. "Fuck you!" he shouts, the wind swallowing his scream, but it doesn't feel good to scream. It doesn't feel like anything except irrational remorse, because the vengeful God who doesn't exist might be enough of a dick to hurt her just because he has insulted him. Because that's how fucked up the world is. It's the same Gods he makes mental bargains with, offering himself up, promising to never waste another chance again if he gets just this one, promising that it doesn't matter what happened to her as long as she is alive. But no answer comes. He is alone, and she is out there somewhere, and there is nothing he can do about it but torture himself by imagining what Lewis might be doing to her at this very moment. Because if he can imagine it, then she is not dead. _

_He resumes his pointless run along the beach, scanning the houses for signs of…what? Human inhabitants? His phone rings, and his brain goes into overdrive, because they've found her, they've found her, they've found her! It is Nick, and in one millisecond, he'll know, and that might be the destruction of all hope. He answers in a bark. "What?!"_

_Nick doesn't waste words. "We got her. Alive. She called, and the officers are with her right now, she's safe."_

_His brain has stopped processing at "alive". "Fuck…what…fuck…" A weird noise escapes his mouth, and he realizes it's a dry sob, and another. He is losing it. The world around him is blurring, the waves are crashing in, his knees feel wobbly. _

"_She's alive, Brian."_

"_Where?" She might be close to him, her feet could be touching the same ground. _

"_At the crime scene." From the noise in the background, his hyperalert brain can deduce that Nick is on his way to her at lightning speed. "She called, so I assume that's a good sign." Nick sounds cold, professional, although his voice is extremely strained. He's in work mode. _

"_She called? How…God…how did she…"_

"_I don't know. I'm gonna call her, stay with her on the phone now, so I gotta go. Just wanted to let you know."_

"_Wait-"_

"_I'll call you back."_

"_Thanks" escapes him as the line clicks, and Nick is gone. The sky is oppressive above him, he has to find his car, he has to get out of here, he has to see her, he has to do something. _

* * *

><p>He approached her carefully after giving her a moment to herself, crouching down beside her because it felt weird to tower above her. She was staring straight ahead, her face wet with silent tears, which she brushed away with her hand quickly.<p>

"Liv" he repeated gently, trying to make sure she knew where she was. But this wasn't a flashback or an intrusion. He didn't know what exactly this was, and how much exactly he was allowed to say about it. "You're here with me, not back there with him."

"I know that" she snapped angrily, like he had guessed she would. "Just give me a minute. I'm done, done with all this stuff. It's over."

"Okay" he muttered cautiously, because literally anything he could say now would infuriate her further. This wasn't him and her, this was her and Lewis and he wasn't about to step into that.

"I won. He didn't win, I did."

"You did. But we didn't have to come here to prove that." It had been over two years, and still, she needed to win.

"But we did" she said in a softer tone. "He doesn't control this place for me. I can go anywhere I want. He will not always be with me."

He was nearly holding his breath at this amount of self-disclosure, afraid that any move on his part could ruin this moment of openness.

"I've let him go."

_Don't say anything,_ he reminded himself._ Just don't say anything. Let her do this. She needs this. _Why now? He had no clue as to that. She hadn't brought it up in ages, and he had learned not to bring it up at all. It was what it was, and he liked to tell himself that maybe, she simply wasn't thinking about it all that often anymore.

She had composed herself and was gazing out onto the sea with a distant expression. "I mean he's changed things, but he doesn't control that anymore."

They remained silent for a while, and his knees had started to ache, so he lowered himself down onto his butt, embracing his legs in front of him loosely. She followed suit a moment later until they sat in the cold sand side by side without touching, the breeze washing over them.

"I was at the beach when, uh, Nick called to tell me they'd found you" he finally told her after rehearsing the sentence a hundred times in his head. He had never discussed this with her. "Not this beach, another one. I was so…relieved." The word seemed wholly inadequate.

She cocked her head, hugging her legs a big closer to her chest. "A different beach. Mine was different, too."

He frowned. As far as he knew, she had been at a beach house, not actually on a beach.

She noticed his confusion. "Oh, I was inside the house, but he went out to get salt water from the ocean. Because it hurts, you know, when…" She looked down, unable to finish the sentence. "Anyway, what kind of nutjob risks that? Going outside just to grab some water?"

"A sick one." He could have been seen. It could have been over quicker, or more people could have died. Lewis didn't like to leave witnesses.

"He made me drink it, too. Just because. But not enough so I'd…"

Fuck. After two years, after all the scars he had seen, it was the shit that didn't leave visible scars that still surprised him. She had told him some things, mostly whenever he had dared to ask a question about a concrete piece of evidence, and whenever she felt like answering, and whenever it wasn't about anything remotely sexual. He clasped one hand over his mouth. What did you say to that? "Shit…"

"Yeah." She stretched a bit, reaching forward to where the sand was wet, and drew a circle into it with her finger.

"Did you want to…?" His heart leapt into his throat as he asked the question. This was dangerous territory.

It took her a moment to answer. "At some point." She looked at him now, calm as hell, and he didn't think he would ever be able to get this moment out of his head. More fucked up beach memories. "But I thought it was going to happen, anyway, so I just wanted it to come quicker. I didn't want him to win. I didn't really want it, not then."

The "not then" left an implied "but" that hung uneasily between them. She didn't need to state what it meant, this "but later, after". He accidentally bit the inside of his cheek, which he had been chewing on. "You know, it doesn't mean that he won. That you did."

She sighed an annoyed sigh, as if they had been over this a million times before. "I _know_."

"To make it through all that and come out at the other end-"

"Okay, thanks, Dr. Cassidy." It was the sudden switch to flippant that acted as a "no further" sign.

"Seriously, I'd often look at you and think how amazing it is that you got through all that, how strong you are."

Now she was intensely uncomfortable, brushing some wet dirt off her shoe. She was done talking. "Thanks. For…" She took a deep breath. "…you know. Everything."

He acknowledged it with a silent nod, not entirely sure what "everything" was, because everything had sure felt a lot like fumbling around in the dark, constantly bumping into things. It would probably remain dark forever.

"Now can we stop this and enjoy some…fucking…nature?"

He let out a throaty laugh, not because it was particularly funny, but because she was trying here. "I think nature's overrated. My ass feels cold and wet."

"Yeah, plus it's going to rain." She studied the sky. "Let's go."

He was grateful at the suggestion. It was time to move, time to shake off this sadness so they could go home and tell his mom about the wonderful time they had had, and cuddle Noah and continue the life that was so unlike that other life. They would resume. They must resume. He took hold of her hand again out of physical need. She squeezed it as they turned to leave, before glancing back over her shoulder once more.

_The waves break multiple times, losing some of their impact far out on the sea as the spray rolls in. If he can make the next wave swerve left, it was all a dream. _


End file.
